I have a bad feeling, it makes me want to cry or something. That is going to be it, then they will wrap it up in a nice bow, with a letter attached saying "ha ha we did again shitheads" When that day comes, I am going after the FOX executives. Then its going to be game on.

Yeah, well, that song also says rock and roll can never die, but, as far as I'm concerned, it died about a decade ago.

Okay, so about this 'rebirth' thing. Everyone's worried that this is an attempt to hit that 'ole reset button again:

That comment from MG about wanting to do a Star-Trekkish reboot of the series comes to mind. My guess is that, somehow, the crew ends up in the past and screws around with the timeline in such a way that it alters the events surrounding one of the characters' births (Fry, probably).

Whatever the case, didn't David X. Cohen say that the episode where Fry and the Professor travel into the future is going to somehow involve a Fry-Leela date? No matter what this whole 'rebirth' thing is about then, there cant be much of a reset planned, or Fry and Leela wouldn't be dating.

i was actually quoting Def Leppard, "Rock of Ages" but Neil Young sang it as well.Kurdt Cobain put it in his suicide note.This is OT really OT but he is credited with saying "It's better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not".I wonder if this is an original from him?

- Fry is always late for his dates with Leela. He finally shows up early for one and he gets tired of waiting. When the professor shows up with a time machine that only goes forward 10 minutes in time, how can Fry resist? The only problem is that it actually takes them 10 years into the future.

The "always being late" thing seems to imply that Fry and Leela will be steadily dating, which fills my shippy little heart with some hope. Nice to see that the writers really do have the balls to follow through with the emotional resolution in ItWGY.

Not necessarily, Gorky. They could mention it de temps en temps throughout episodes but not hammer it in until this one. They could do a montage when Leela says, "You're always late!" and then he says, "No I'm isn't," and then a hilarious montage of him being late begins. This also allows other episodes to focus on other things without having to constantly show them dating. I mean, would you really not get bored of them showing them go on a date every single episode? After the first one, their dates would be pushed to a B-story, even a C-story. Repetition of the same old same old isn't funny, unless it's in quick succession and with rakes.

i_c_weiner, I think you misunderstood what Gorky meant. She's happy that Fry and Leela as a couple won't be a dropped or underdeveloped story (as am I). She's not thinking that the writers meant that every single episode will show them on a date or something. Nobody wants that. She's just happy that it's something the writers are set to work on.

One of these days, you non-shippers will have to figure out that us shippers don't want the entire show to be F/L's romance. We simply like the story and like it having its dues. That doesn't mean that we want it to be a sole focus of the show, or a focus of every episode. Just that it gets the respect and writing it deserves.

Thanks for the elaboration, FoA; that's really what I meant by my comment, i_c. Trust me, I don't want the show to focus on the Fry/Leela relationship--I'm just glad that they're not writing off the ending of ItWGY, seeing as how they've reset this particular plot point so much in the past. Really, I'm so psyched that they're finally getting Fry and Leela together because it will enable them to focus on other storylines of the comedic sci-fi variety. The romantic and/or emotional episodes are great now and then, but I agree with you that there's much more to the show than Fry and Leela's quasi-love story.

As an "anti-shipper", though probably more along the lines of "couldn't care less about shipping kinda guy", I have to say I find that people who are attracted to the whole shippy ordeal are pretty big fans of jokes too.

They just have hearts too, while I just laugh cynically. Because I am heartless commie Nazi-loving capitalist pig.

So the flawed logic of assuming "I like shipping" indicates that "I hate jokes" is not to be found by me.

I can even prove the logic is flawed with a truth table, but I guess that's redundant, as it would be trivial.

I was a shipper, until the point when I realized that the show's more interesting when you don't have a character tied down to a concept and allow them to be used in various storylines. Look at Amy; started off interesting as the cute quasi-whore and then Kif is thrown into her life hard at the beginning of Season 3 and her character got boring. Didn't really affect Kif too much, but, unlike Amy, his character wasn't seen in almost every single episode up until that point or developed much. That's what made Beast interesting to me, as it threw a wrench into the mundane monotonous monogamy of Amy and could set for a return of her to her early season self. Yes, Fry and Leela didn't ever really have anything like Kif and Amy did, but the point remains that their constant back-and-forth definitely bogged down the show in Season 4, in my opinion. I'm not anti-shipping, per se, but I'd far rather other storylines be fleshed out.

I don't disagree on your thoughts on Kif and Amy. While I never hated their relationship, I never felt it mattered enough for me to care.

With Kif, he went from the more realistic interpretation of Spock (his constant signs when Zapp would say or do something stupid) to this whiny, effeminate bladder bag. There were a few times that we would get that Kif back (405, ITWGY), but for the most part he was neutered.

With Amy, I don't really think the core of her character was affected too much (I don't care if she dates dudes on the show). I think her cuteness and Valley Girl attitude (what I consider the core of her character) managed to mostly pull through.

The only reason I can think of the writers pairing her with Kif is that it gave them excuses to make stories about her (and Kif). There isn't really that much to separate Amy into a foreground character (she along with Hermes was treated as normal by Michelle (speaking of Hermes, he needed Dwight in order to have a reason to focus on him)) if she doesn't have Kif.

I'm not saying Amy (and Hermes) are uninteresting characters, so much as there are only so many unique storylines you can toss them into that wouldn't be more interestingly used by other characters (they were axed from 319 since there is nothing those characters could have really added to the story).

But when we talk shipping, nobody really means Amy and Kif. We're talking Fry and Leela.

You say that the characters are bogged down by their relationship, and that other, more interesting stories could be fleshed out instead. I'm not sure what those stories are. Fry dates other chicks? Leela dates some guys? What is gotten by keeping them apart?

F/L's relationship is a chance to delve into the characters more closely, to further endear them to the audience. Sure, there is Fry's family in the past and Leela's abandonment from her parents, but those stories have limited use. You can't always go back to Fry's family, and even if the show continued I can't imagine the writers would have held back on Leela's parents much longer past S4. There had to be something else.

Wouldn't the show feel rather empty without the emotional core (i.e. the relationships between the various characters) that it's developed for itself over the years? I know the characters have base personalities (Fry's a goof, Leela's the tough captain, Bender's amoral), but those bases have changed. The board is occasionally moved one step-forward, so Square One isn't always as far back as it used to be. The best episodes are the ones that change the characters in some great way. The worst or empty-feeling ones are the ones that kept them at some bay (or reset them to an earlier self).

Keeping the characters personalities in such a stasis would be far more boring (and far more limiting) than changing them. Change the characters (in a progressive way that makes sense for them) and you give them life. Leave them as they are and you make them puppets. The show stagnates.

To me, Futurama is a character-driven show. The plot isn't the interesting part, so much as how the characters react to it. To keep the characters as one-note is to limit their reactions. I want to see more of the characters, not familiar less. Otherwise, the show ends up feeling like random silliness for 22-min a week, rather than something that lives and breathes (at least in my mind).

It'll probably be along the lines of being inadvertantly late due to general incompetence/bad luck. If he was late because it wasn't important to him it'd be the biggest instance of somebody behaving out of character in the history of television.

I'm a shipper but I'm not a hard-core shipper. I agree that it will get boring having them go out every single episode. I'd like to have a few shippy episodes but I just don't want the 'ship to be the main focus of the whole serise. The jokes are why I started watching the show. We can't just let Futurama turn down the dark road The Simpsons has taken. If I start laughing my ass off during an episode then I'll know that dark path has not been followed. Futurama is a fantastic TV show, we don't want it to become repetitive.

Legal Notice & Disclaimer: "Futurama" TM and copyright FOX, its related entities and the Curiosity Company. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. As a fan site, this Futurama forum, its operators, and any content on the site relating to "Futurama" are not explicitely authorized by Fox or the Curiosity Company.